


Dance

by Siriusly_mckinnon



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, idk depends on your interpretation, maybe a date is made?, natasha doing ballet, tbh do I ever really know what's going on in my fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 23:49:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14821227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siriusly_mckinnon/pseuds/Siriusly_mckinnon
Summary: Each Avenger has their own way of dealing with bad missions, Steve discovers Natasha's.





	Dance

It had been a bad mission. Steve could see it in the slumped shoulders of his team that everyone was feeling particularly affected by the things they had seen and done this time. He himself could barely filter out the destruction he had just come from. Even Natasha, always perfectly postured, was bearing the weight of the mission. He knew what would happen next. As soon as the quinjet landed she would slip off somewhere and not be seen for hours. It was a guaranteed pattern after a bad mission that Steve had picked up on but hadn’t brought up. If she wanted him to know she would tell him.

Except this time he had to impose on her after mission quiet time. She had slipped off too quickly and he was missing her signature on the mission report. Fury would be straight on his ass if he arrived without it and so despite his desire to leave her be he went on his way to find her.

‘Hey Jarvis, could you point me in the direction of Natasha please?’ Steve still felt a little silly every time he spoke to the air, he felt even more uncomfortable when the air answered him.

‘Certainly Captain Rogers, Miss Romanoff is located on the 63rd floor. If you step into the elevator I’ll take you there.’

Steve frowned in confusion, Natasha definitely didn’t live on that floor. He knew for a fact that when she did stay in the Avengers compound she was on the 42nd floor.

He stepped into the elevator and Jarvis set it to the 63rd floor. Mercifully he was alone in there so he leaned his arms against the wall and took a deep breath, steeling himself. When the door opened he was about to ask Jarvis where exactly she was on the floor when he heard soft music coming from down the hall. He followed it and came to a sliding door where Jarvis, without prompting, slid it open.

This was… not what he had expected. Natasha had changed out of her suit and was wearing black tights and a matching leotard. She had those special shoes for ballet on her feet and her hair was in a tight bun. Steve stood in the doorway, his mouth gaping. He didn’t know the name of the moves she was doing but he could tell it was some seriously complicated ballet.

The way she moved was captivating. Her body spun and whirled with a grace he had only seen in movies. Actually come to think of it, the way she moved was reminding him of the lithe precision that she fought with.

‘Are you going to keep staring or are you going to come in’ her voice carried over the music, shaking Steve out of his thoughts.

‘I didn’t know you could dance like that’ he said stepping further into the room. She stopped moving to sit cross legged on the floor and he followed to sit across from her. Jarvis lowered the music without being asked and Steve marvelled again at the usefulness of the AI.

‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me’ she cocked an eyebrow and he knew she was only teasing.

‘Is this where you disappear to after missions?’ he questioned. There was a time Steve wouldn’t have felt comfortable prying into her life like this but that had surely passed. Natasha was his partner in crime, no topic was sacred.

Her smile dropped slightly. ‘We all try to escape after a mission Steve’. She shrugged. ‘Everyone has their own method of recovering’.

He noted her use of the word recovering. Had she used something like unwinding he wouldn’t be concerned but now that he looked at her properly he could see the defeat in her posture, the shadows under her eyes and the weariness that seemed to exist as an aura around her. Natasha wasn’t much for talking about what was bothering her so he knew that was a dead end approach. From experience he figured making her laugh was his best bet.

‘Oh yeah? What do I do after a mission so, or are you just acting like you know everything again’. He smirked at her and she smiled at the memory of the last time she had said that to him.

‘You sketch or paint or whatever other artsy thing you can think of’ she answered him seriously.

He was a bit taken back. He did tend to get lost in the world of art after missions but he hadn’t realised anyone had noticed.

‘You used to draw before this whole thing didn’t you?’ She gestured the length of his body. He nodded and she continued. ‘I think that’s what everyone does. Things from before they became world saving heroes’ she said the word almost bitterly.

‘What does everyone else do?’ Even though they were technically still discussing a less than cheery topic Steve could see Natasha relaxing into the conversation and he mentally relaxed himself. He hated seeing her unhappy.

‘Tony tinkers in his lab, but that’s what Tony does to avoid everything. Bruce looks over his old lectures, did you know he used to be a professor?’ He shook his head in the negative but thinking about Bruce as a professor made sense. School had definitely changed since his time but he could imagine he would be a good teacher, except for the Other Guy.

‘And Clint does what, skulks around the vents?’ She laughed at that, which had been his intention.

‘No, the actual answer isn’t any better though. I bet you didn’t know Clint plays the banjo.’ He raised his eyebrow at her sceptically and she laughed again. ‘I’m not lying, he learned when he was younger and now he practices after a mission’ she smiled at the thought.

‘Will wonders ever cease’ he muttered playfully ‘And Thor?’

‘I don’t actually know’ She frowned slightly, she hated not knowing things. The frown was replaced by a mischievous grin as she continued. ‘Maybe he finds Dr Foster and…’ She waggled her eyebrows suggestively at him.

He wrinkled his nose at the mental image. ‘So you learned to dance before…’ he waved his hand in an all-encompassing gesture. The smile she had been wearing dimmed slightly.

‘I don’t think there was much of a before. I studied ballet as a cover for everything else, it is useful if I don’t want to focus on something’. She smiled ruefully and half shrugged. ‘It’s something they taught me that I can make my own, they used it to cover up my destruction and I use it to forget about it.’ Her eyes met his and she gave him a genuine smile. ‘Besides it keeps me fit for all those bikinis I can’t wear’

He laughed at that and his eyes did a sweep of her body. Keep her fit indeed. A thought struck him then and he sat up a little straighter. ‘You’ve never actually… seen any of my drawings have you?’ He could feel his face start to heat up, she had featured more than a few times in his sketchbook.

‘You know I hear drawing someone is much easier if you have the model in front of you’ she smiled innocently at him. He blushed harder, knowing she must have seen them and cursed himself for being careless with his sketchbook. Now that she had said it the soft way she was looking at him made his hands itch to draw her. Even though he knew she had been teasing with her comment he had a sudden burst of confidence.

‘Would you pose for a drawing? If you’re not doing anything else it would be my honour and privilege to draw you Nat’

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise but she found herself nodding anyway. Steve was graced with the extremely rare image of a soft blush covering Natasha’s cheeks.

‘You want to paint me like one of your French girls, Rogers?’

‘I don’t understand that reference’ that was a lie. He had absolutely seen Titanic but if pretending he hadn’t would get him a movie thrown into their little drawing session he was more than happy to watch it again.

‘Guess I’ll have to educate you then.’ She cleared her throat and stood up. ‘I should shower, take care of a few things but I can swing by yours around 7ish?’

‘Sounds like a plan’ he nodded at her.

She stretched like a cat, bending backwards so far Steve thought her back would snap.

‘How flexible even are you?’ he muttered half to himself. She made a noise of surprise and his head jerked up, realising she had heard him. ‘For posing purposes I mean’ he stammered, trying to save face.

‘Just what pose are you going to draw me in that requires my legs above my head?’ she cocked an eyebrow at him, tilting her head.

‘You can _do_ that?’ He blurted out without thinking.

She burst out in startled laughter. ‘Good lord, Steve!’ She shook her head at him fondly and made for the door, still chuckling.

The warmth of her laughter lingered in the room after she left. Steve realised he had never gotten the signature he had gone down there for in the first place but he wasn’t all that upset about it, he was walking away with something much better than a signature.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello pals, this one is much lighter than my last one I think. As usual I never have any fuckin clue whats going on in things I write so I hope ya'll enjoy it ? Flirting is hard ok. Find me on tumblr under siriusly-mckinnon


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